How do I make pour-over coffee?

Pour-over gives the most control of any brewing method and the most opportunity to get it wrong. Two things matter most: the bloom, which lets trapped CO2 escape so water can actually reach the coffee, and keeping the grounds evenly saturated throughout.

What you'll need

• Pour-over dripper and filters
• Kettle, ideally gooseneck
• Scales
• Timer
• Burr grinder

Step by step

1. Rinse the paper filter with hot water and discard the rinse water.It removes the papery taste and preheats the dripper and cup.
2. Weigh the coffee — 15g for a 250ml cup, or 60g per litre.Grind medium, roughly like table salt.
3. Level the bed and make a small well in the centre.An even bed extracts evenly. A sloping bed channels water down one side.
4. Pour twice the coffee's weight in water and wait 30–45 seconds.30g of water for 15g of coffee. This is the bloom — fresh coffee releases CO2 that blocks water from reaching it.
5. Pour the rest in slow concentric circles, starting from the centre.Keep the water off the filter walls — coffee washed up the sides doesn't extract.
6. Pour in stages, letting the level drop between pours.Two or three additions rather than one continuous pour gives more even saturation.
7. Aim for a total brew time of 2:30–3:30 for a single cup.Much faster means the grind is too coarse; much slower means too fine.
8. Taste and adjust one variable: finer for sour, coarser for bitter.Sour means under-extracted, bitter means over-extracted. Grind is the main lever.

Tips

• A gooseneck kettle gives far more control over the pour, and it's the one piece of pour-over equipment that genuinely changes the result.
• The final bed should be flat. A crater in the middle or high sides means the pour was uneven.
• Water just off the boil, around 92–94°C. Straight from the kettle is too hot for most coffees.
• Weigh the water as well as the coffee. Pouring by eye is the largest source of inconsistency.

Common mistakes

• Skipping the bloom — Trapped CO2 in fresh coffee physically blocks water from the grounds, giving uneven extraction.
• Pouring down the filter walls — Coffee washed up the sides never gets properly extracted and the brew tastes weak.
• Pouring all the water at once — The bed floods and the grounds don't stay evenly saturated.
• Using boiling water — Over-extracts and accentuates bitterness, particularly with a fine grind.

Questions people ask